By Shelley Marsden

Pictured is Irish artist Fion Gunn beside one of her artworks, Letting Go, inspired by Beijing, a city she says has been “a great source of creative inspiration”. It is one of a series of artworks on show at the City and the City, launched at the A.T.M. Gallery last Thursday in Deptford by Bobby McDonagh, Ambassador of Ireland in theUK

The collaborative, multi-media all-female exhibition by contemporary Irish, UK and Chinese artists, part of the city’s Cultural Olympiad, was created by London-based Gun. She said of the inspiration behind it: “The ‘City’has long been seen and portrayed as a place of boundless potential and strident ambition. The description of Babel and its fall takes up just nine lines in the Old Testament, yet its image has proliferated in art ever since and its meaning remains hauntingly ambiguous.

The exhibition runs at the A.P.T. Gallery, 6 Deptford Creek, London SE8 4SA until 20 May 2012 ((Tues-Sun inclusive 11am-6pm). For more, see http://thecityandthecity.moonfruit.com.

By Madeline O'Connor

Singer-songwriter Jamie Lawson, who reached number 1 in the Irish iTunes charts last year, will be tutoring a Songwriting workshop at the West Cork Literary Festival in Bantry this summer.

In this five day workshop takes place from Monday 9 - Friday 13 July, Jamie and course participants will examine song-writing, their own and others', both good and bad, in order to gain a better understanding of the craft and help make everyone stronger writers. By the end of the week everyone will hopefully have new songs to perform that they can be proud of, and they will get to try them out on the public on Thursday 12 July at Ma Murphy's pub in Bantry.

Jamie Lawson had a strange and wonderful 2011. After posting a new song, Wasn't Expecting That, on You Tube in January, it was picked up by Irish radio station Today FM, where it was played again and again. Before he knew it, he was on The Late Late Show and - all in the space of two weeks -had been signed by Universal Ireland.

Wasn't Expecting That quickly hit No.1 on the Irish itunes chart and No.3 in the official charts. Jamie spent the rest of the year touring Ireland to great success culminating in a sold-out Green Note show in London. Currently recording a new album, including a new studio version of Wasn't Expecting That, and other stunningly heart-felt songs, 2012 is already turning out to be equally successful.

Other workshops taking place during the week will be Fiction with Glenn Patterson, Poetry with Dermot Healy, Scriptwriting with Miriam Gallagher, The Novel : Beyond the First Draft with Claire Kilroy, Comic Fiction with Ian McPherson, Short Story with Tessa Hadley, Journalism with Lorna Siggins, Words Allowed ( for teenagers) with Dave Lordan, Poetry with Ruth Padel and Non-fiction/Memoir with Molly McCloskey.

The West Cork Literary Festival also features readings, seminars, children's events and much more. Appearing in Bantry this year are Sir Michael Parkinson, John McCarthy, Anita Desai, Anita Shreve, Paul Muldoon, Dava Sobel, Romesh Gunesekera, Kevin Barry, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Nicci French, Miriam O'Callaghan, Theo Dorgan and many more.

For more information and to book, go to www.westcorkliteraryfestival.ie.

By Shelley Marsden

The City of London Festival, which takes place 24 June – 27 July, celebrating 50 years this year, is one of the most prestigious festivals taking place in the Capital, featuring over 100 performances at 55 venues in the Square Mile and beyond. 

The festival has a wealth of world premiers, unique collaborations and exclusive opportunities on the streets and hidden spaces of the City.  These range from English National Ballet performing at St Pauls Cathedral, Sir Colin Davis conducting theLSOfor Berlioz’s colossal work Grande Messe des Morts, through to over 300 piano lessons being offered in one day to City workers on the 50 ‘Golden Pianos’ that will be placed on the streets of Square Mile for the duration of the Festival.

The festival was founded in 1962 and the Lord Mayor at the time remarked:  “Amidst  a period of the worship of Mammon, this Festival is trying to show many things  that are beautiful and inspired in the arts, in the setting of this our most  historic capital, and perhaps by doing so release man for a while and remind  him that there are other things than those entirely material.”

This sentence rings true today as the Festival releases its most ambitious and far reaching programme.  The Festival also has a strong disability arts theme, including a new work by composer Nigel Osborne that will receive its world première by tetraplegic former trumpeter, Clarence Adoo, on his specially-designed new Headspace instrument which has enabled him to perform once again.

Sustainability remains a core part of the Festival's programme, with flowers in the spotlight for 2012. The Festival will be promoting and nurturing wildflowers across the Square Mile, providing vital support for the City's population of pollinators. The public will be invited to feast on City honey taken from the Festival’s roof-top beehives, as well as celebrate urban flowers, at the Festival’s closing event in Paternoster Square (27 July). 

Box office: 0845 120 7502 / www.colf.org

By Shelley Marsden

Leading children’s charity the NSPCC and auction house Bonhams have announced the list of iconic images to be offered for sale as part of the Photographs auction on 17th May at Bonhams, Knightsbridge.

All funds raised from the sale of the ten donated photographs will go to the NSPCC and its Rebuilding Childhoods Appeal, which provides therapy for children and young people who have suffered abuse.

A host of leading photographers and private collectors have donated works, with highlights including Patrick Demarchelier’s stunning image of Christy Turlington taken inNew Yorkin 1986 and a playful shot of Brigitte Bardot and Sean Connery on the set of 1968Western Shalakoby celebrated British photographer, Terry O’Neill (pictured).

There are also show-stopping portraits of well-known celebrity faces like Florence Welch (of Florence and the Machine) by Israeli photographer, Nadav Kander; flamboyant fashion designer Valentino by Martin Schoeller; Twiggy by Barry Lategan; the beautiful Celia Hammond by Terence Donovan; Damien Hirst by David Bailey; and a striking portrait of Oliver Reed by celeb photographer, Alistair Morrison.

For more info about the NSPCC visit www.nspcc.org.uk.